Search

Yeehaw! Round and round and round he goes! Once a fiddler gets-a-skating, there’s no stopping him. I had nine violin lessons when I was six and not once did the teacher bring out roller skates. He kept harping on about, firstly harps because they were his true musical love but was never good enough to play professionally and secondly about technique, scales and fingering.

I told my teacher theory was all well and good, but if I couldn’t fiddle while roller-skating there’ll be no hope for me. He drew a long drag on a cigarette, poured himself a scotch and told me of a student he brought along too quickly. After being taught the D major pentatonic scale, the student begged to strap on the skates. Though the young protégé’s talent was immense, the teacher was reluctant, fearing his pupil could burn out if the world of roller-fiddling was introduced too soon. But desperate to nurture child’s virtuosity and perhaps wanting to live vicariously, he agreed.

The skates went on. The student was four bars into To Arms in Dixie, when he lost control and impaled himself on his three hundred year-old Stradivarius.

Impatiently, I quit the violin and enrolled in lessons to learn playing the mandolin while bouncing on a space hopper. My leaping mandolin orchestra plays Sundays.